Britain currently hosts around a dozen Confucius Institutes, but Bangor's will be the first to be based at a law school. Bangor already welcomes students from several Chinese universities each year and offers Mandarin language modules.

Cahill said several local secondary schools were already interested in Chinese culture, particularly Chinese painting, calligraphy, music and films. Bangor hopes to attract applications for its planned joint degree in 2013 or 2014. The Confucius Institute will bring in teachers from China to teach at Bangor, and the university's classes will be open to the local community and secondary school students.

It will also offer seminars, workshops and conferences on handling Chinese commercial negotiations and facilitating business links with China. Other topics will include Chinese product safety law, how China might learn from UK competition regulation, and the role of the judiciary in resolving Chinese intellectual property disputes. There are "many misunderstandings about Chinese intellectual property law", Cahill says. Lawyers and judges will also be invited to help explain the role of the lawyer in Chinese society.

He emphasises that although the institute's program will have a distinctive legal flavour, it is primarily a cultural exchange programme: "You have to understand a country's culture and language first before you can understand anything else."

Bangor currently offers four joint degrees in Law and European languages. Students on the law and Mandarin degree will have the chance to spend a year abroad in China, with the possibility of an internship at one of the global law firms with offices there.

The Chinese ministry of education is providing half the initial funding to set up the Institute, says Professor Cahill, contributing a "substantial amount" of money. He hopes it will eventually be self-sufficient, but said he had no difficulty accepting funds from the Chinese government: "We have complete freedom in what we teach and research." The institute's co-directors, Professor Wei Shi of Bangor's Law School and a professor from China University of Political Science and Law, will allocate the funding as they see fit.

Cahil added: "We also have a substantial Chinese community here in Wales who are very supportive of the Confucius Institute. They feel that it would help people in the region understand them and their culture."

However, Professor Richard Moorhead of Cardiff Law School expressed scepticism that a dual Law and Mandarin degree would make UK law graduates more attractive to global law firms based in China. "I imagine they would be more interested in native Chinese students with a law degree."